News

  Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. reduced its forecast for net interest margin, the difference between what it makes on loans and pays for funds, on expectations interest rates will remain low for a longer stretch than bank executives previously thought. The margin will be about 2.90 percent in the second half of 2016, down from a previous forecast of 2.95 percent, ...

  Bloomberg The highly-indebted oil company at the center of Brazil’s biggest corruption scandal still has cash to support top athletes in the run-up to the Olympic games being held in its home city. Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras has expanded its budget for athletes, even as it cut overall sponsorship spending by 27 percent this year to 228 million reais ...

  Bloomberg Accused by one of its founders of nepotism and greed, Hyperloop Technologies Inc., a startup dedicated to fulfilling Elon Musk’s dream of high-speed transportation, is taking steps to rein in the power of its major stakeholders. At a series of all-hands meetings in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the situation, the company told employees it’s ...

  Cucuta, Colombia / AFP Thousands of Venezuelans crossed into the Colombian city of Cucuta to buy food and medicine, taking advantage of another brief opening in the border that’s been closed nearly a year. Caracas authorized the temporary opening a week after some 35,000 Venezuelans poured across the border during a 12-hour opening of the pedestrian bridge that connects Tachira, ...

  Jeddah / TNS The Kingdom ranked 33rd among 139 countries in the technology sector to be classified by the World Economic Forum as “top movers” in the field of information and communication technology. The Kingdom is trying to enter the club of top seven in the ICT world. The Ministry of Telecommunication and Information Technology said in a statement recently ...

  REUTERS Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank (NCB), the kingdom’s listed largest lender, reported a 3.2 percent rise in second-quarter net profit on Sunday, at the low end of analysts’ forecasts. The bank made a net profit of 2.44 billion riyals ($665 million) in the three months to June 30, up from 2.36 billion riyals in the same period of ...

  REUTERS National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) said on Sunday it signed a deal with Arab Petroleum Investments Corp. (APICORP) to launch a $1.5 billion investment fund that could buy up to 15 very large crude carriers (VLCCs). The fund will be seeded with $500 million on three occasions, subject to conditions, Bahri said in a bourse statement, ...

  REUTERS Guards protesting over pay shut the eastern Libyan oil terminal of Hariga on Sunday, delaying two shipments of crude, a port official said. A unit of Libya’s Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) took the action because they said they had not been paid their salaries recently, the Hariga official said. He said the protest had delayed two tankers, one ...

  Bloomberg Oil is flowing unhindered through Turkey’s pipelines and waterways, one of the world’s largest energy trading corridors, after a coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed. The Turkish straits are open to shipping traffic, an official at the Istanbul-based shipping center said by phone ON Saturday. Crude oil shipments from Azerbaijan and Iraq into Turkey’s Mediterranean port ...

Jeddah / TNS Approximately 125 global companies in security services are providing solutions to the Saudi business sector in the light of the growing demand for security, safety services and protection from fires. “Saudi budgetary allocations for security across municipal, health, infrastructural, transport and construction sectors are increasing. This is why the world’s companies are targeting the Saudi market,” Mowfaq Alharithi, ...